Manahil Bandukwala

Like many of my peers, the kind of poetry I read when I was in high school didn't often speak to me or my experience. A lot of the poems I read and studied were from a British context, like poems about the English countryside. I came across Shailja Patel's "Migritude" on Tumblr, and it was instance of encountering a poem that truly spoke to me. Growing up with the idea that English was the dominant language and the only way to secure a future, Patel's poem ("Yet English / shrinks / him / down / before white men") ruptured my own internalized biases. This kind of poem also made me realize I could write about my own experiences and realities, instead of needing to emulate the English pastoral I grew up studying. 

My earliest poems are from as early as six or seven years old! I wrote odes to my stuffed toys. I properly started writing “adult” poetry towards the end of high school and into university. Very early into my undergraduate degree, I encountered Ottawa’s poetry scene, and have never looked back since. The encouragement and excitement I received on just being present in these spaces made it easy to come back. I feel most of my education as a poet has been through observing and talking with other poets and learning about their practices. 

Poetry has many jobs, but a persistent job of poetry seems to be to speak to the injustices of the world. To quote June Jordan from “Apologies to All the People in Lebanon,” “I didn’t know and nobody told me and what / could I do or say, anyway?” 

"Late Prayer" by Erin Robinsong